Daily Answers

1-across – Ring seen after having tail docked, problem for marsupial : OPOSSUM

5-across – What’s left of drink round back of bar left for crossword setters : SURPLUS

9-across – Beastly comment about something pink gains award : BAFTA

10-across – Small vehicle with English pig backing into King Edward : TWOSEATER

11-across – Equivalent to three times, Mao cavorts with a nun : TANTAMOUNT

12-across – Piece of piano music, for example : PART

14-across – Being abusive in intimate practice, tries to be kinky : MISTREATING

18-across – In an unorthodox manner, present score about ninety-nine : HERETICALLY

21-across – Labour-saving package for Major, possibly : URSA

22-across – Infer Rocky hangs around with foreign correspondents, perhaps : PENFRIENDS

25-across – Made bitter by a cold I passed on, if caught : ACIDIFIED

26-across – Red-hot stuff about right for grub : LARVA

27-across – Cheapen to make daughter, say, awfully dear : DEGRADE

28-across – Shown to be average? Dead wrong : PARADED

1-down – Goes round, or 12s : ORBITS

2-down – Be disgusting when over the limit? : OFFEND

3-down – Result of dripping and meat cooked with gas and lit : STALAGMITE

4-down – Item on table put on weight, given up for sort of meal : MATZO

5-down – Rat run closed off : SCOUNDREL

6-down – Something in pond fretted, having activated grenade? : REED

7-down – Lover with a great deal of hair made love : LOTHARIO

8-down – Plan to wander round stand? : STRATEGY

13-down – 7 with Ruth Ellis : LADYKILLER

15-down – Unlikely to say 2/3 understand 20/4 : SECRETIVE

16-down – 14? : THOUSAND

17-down – See 16 : DRESSING

19-down – Girl already solved? : INGRID

20-down – See 16 : ISLAND

23-down – Unhappy to be offered airline meal? : FEDUP

24-down – A princess of light opera and grand opera : AIDA

1-across – See 10 : STRIKING

5-across – Activate footrest right away : STIRUP

9-across – See10 : DISTANCE

10-across – Approaching picket line? : WITHIN

12-across – Here operative comes together with French actor in business : WORKSTATION

15-across – Cry from Yard close by, seizing drug : NEIGH

17-across – Does this extend from the 5th to 15th centuries? : MIDDLEAGE

18-across – Chosen ones perhaps availed themselves of bus conductor : ELECTRODE

19-across – Dismiss, having kept the enemy back : DEMIT

20-across – With difficulty, a nurse gets him to swallow : HOUSEMARTIN

24-across – See 17 : SPREAD

25-across – On the evidence of her dietary preferences, she should be a regular broadcaster : FIGLOVER

26-across – Shaft’s 25 – and I’m walking on it! : SHANKS

27-across – Pairing’s tense, but comes out on top with it : TWINSHIP

1-down – The team sledger and rattler? : SIDEWINDER

2-down – Checked the others fell : RESTRAINED

3-down – Poet awoke at Shelley’s house : KEATS

4-down – Do up sacrifice where one’s accepted responsibility for drop in cover price : NOCLAIMBONUS

6-down – Three-point turn of obscenity, catching fish : TRIANGLED

7-down – Demon – that’s a surprise! – making an appearance in Rugby : RAHU

8-down – See 26 : PONY

11-down – Belief of those that freeze food in small packages, as Swift saw it : BIRDSEYEVIEW

13-down – Boy of 13’s left arm’s replaced in air raid at Virginia hospital : BARMITZVAH

14-down – Tightly-held Latvian acting without control : LETTINGRIP

16-down – Kind of car to develop second : HATCHBACK

21-down – Is this lion on the slope? Just about : ASLAN

22-down – Goddess is living in the second boat from Oxford : ISIS

23-down – A killer from Pomona, say, half-cut : ORCA

1-across – Actors were first to have moved two pieces at once : CASTLED

5-across – Founder obtained work books : GOTOPOT

9-across – Catch a ball? : ROUND

10-across – Lands awkwardly, interrupting chicken sandwich, perhaps : COLDSNACK

11-across – No weirdness in weird Tony Blair having upgraded his degree? : NORMALITY

12-across – Road and river in the 21 : MIDON

13-across – Openings, of course : HOLES

15-across – Original sin in the 21? : FIRSTSLIP

18-across – A number in crooked dealings indicated : SIGNALLED

19-across – Victimise participant in 21 sport : HOUND

21-across – The battle could be magnetic : FIELD

23-across – Fool given sack with meat : CHUMPCHOP

25-across – Recovery of tree with viral disease : RETRIEVAL

26-across – Confession of being 20-ed left out by soak : IMBUE

27-across – Duelling Dickensian doctor goes to prison : SLAMMER

28-across – Reels collecting scrap? : TOTTERS

1-down – Mr Redgrave hasn’t finished the port : CORINTH

2-down – Not quite the wrong thing for 9 13 in the 21 : SQUARELEG

3-down – Languish in the Daily Sport : LYDIA

4-down – Cute 21 played false : DECEITFUL

5-down – Channel in the 21 : GULLY

6-down – Trial marriage on the 21 : TESTMATCH

7-down – Welsh part of Scots dress : PLAID

8-down – Adopted and raised a little boy among sheep : TAKENUP

14-down – The way with business is not to waver : STANDFIRM

16-down – Revolutionary island with alien fish : REDMULLET

17-down – Ridiculous to give Bella a hug? : LAUGHABLE

18-down – Journeys of fliers when climbing on islands : SAFARIS

20-down – Lower of French papers : DEPRESS

22-down – More, many more, indicate an accumulation in the 21 : EXTRA

23-down – See 22 : COVER

24-down – See 22 : POINT

9-across – Where firewood stacked in valley, nothing acceptable : INGLENOOK

10-across – Saw the era of commercialism? : ADAGE

11-across – Beau literally captured by savages, terrified : GESTE

12-across – Watcher of words in editorial about rip-off : LIPREADER

13-across – Poor grade should be marked up as entertainment : FUNFAIR

14-across – Shake tambourine, not the Guardian’s, but closely related : AMBIENT

17-across – Teacher finds beast incomplete … : RABBI

19-across – … but the complete female to take drugs? : DOE

20-across – Heading for torture, instrument a source of discomfort : THORN

21-across – Former lover can court when long gone : EXTINCT

22-across – Select composition for a keyboard instrument : CELESTA

24-across – Design of RAF engineer not popular, no battery : FREERANGE

26-across – Sob about river of promotional text : BLURB

28-across – Study of note, impromptu duet : ETUDE

29-across – Hairy beast found thanks to natural selection? : TARANTULA

1-down – 3 captain’s duty to grass : SING

2-down – Pushes when timer’s set for 3 1/2 minutes? : EGGSON

3-down – For whom offer of offal would produce a negative response, primarily : VEGETARIAN

4-down – 3 sliding boot in posh car : ROLLER

5-down – Snow vehicle should avoid part of motorway : SKIPLANE

6-down – 3 checkout strip stripped : BARE

7-down – VI – IX II = US city : SANDIEGO

8-down – 3 midwife, perhaps, finds 19 across : DEER

13-down – 3 lucky to be strong : FORTE

15-down – Courage needed to rely on something green : BOTTLEBANK

16-down – Bearing found in gear of ancient Roman islands : TONGA

18-down – Blandish mountain goat? : BUTTERUP

19-down – Set off to wrap film in present : DETONATE

22-down – Sob about woman one stoned : CHERRY

23-down – Shed, during drink, put a sock in it! : SHUTUP

24-down – 3 served in lit spirit to provide nourishment : FEED

25-down – 3 shown to grass : REED

27-down – 3 islands offering beastly sounds : BAAS

5-across – Bananas free! : MADRID

6-across – It turns amphibian : TIRANA

9-across – Tree preserver under fire : ASHCAN

10-across – Is temporarily in charge of New Holidays : HOLDSTHE

11-across – See 10 : FORT

12-across – Like Jowett with letting outside Cayenne, say? : ALLKNOWING

13-across – British : BRINESHRIMP

18-across – Fear about wriggly worm left in Shadowlands? : DREAMWORLD

21-across – Backwater that comes back to where it started : LOOP

22-across – Ismaili leaders ask Ghana for change : AGAKHANS

23-across – Philoprogenitive boy, loveless and cross inside : BROODY

24-across – Greek well opening: what secures the bucket? : EUROPE

25-across – If this is the case, why join most of the foregoing? : LISBON

1-down – Scrambled gold coin for English teacher : EDUCATOR

2-down – Queen’s number’s up : VIENNA

3-down – Overhead projector on plate between road and ship : MILLINER

4-down – Fighting talk? : WARSAW

5-down – Little time on boat : MOSCOW

7-down – Consonant consequential to vowel : ATHENS

8-down – Relic of summer to heartless revolutionary : THELASTROSE

14-down – Offer for Aladdin’s? The answer could be Psalm : NEWLAMPS

15-down – Bingham’s associate in Dorset – sounds to some more like Devon! : MELCOMBE

16-down – Change of sides during pestilence : PRAGUE

17-down – Line like Rostov or Rotherham : LONDON

19-down – Make the ship secure, d’ye hear? : ANKARA

20-down – Turn lacking vision, putting the last first : DUBLIN